How Box supports project teams

- Once you understand project management,you will see projects everywhere,because projects are abundant in our lives.Work continues on the new hotelthat they're building here in town.This has been a huge multi-year project.At the same time, I have a friendwho's managing an updatefor her company's intranet website.This would be considered a mid-sized IT project.And, I'm raising the roof, literally, on a cabin,a very small home renovation projection.

Regardless of size, each of these projectshas features in common,and that is what makes them projects.First, each project has a start date,a time it is actually scheduled to begin,and an end date, the time that it is projectedto be finished.Every project has deliverables,also known as outcomes.They are the point of the project,and projects have budgets.With the exception, perhaps,of my small cabin roofing project,all of the projects I listed have scores of peopleand hundreds, if not thousands, of tasks.

I'll only need three people to complete the two dozen tasksfor my roofing project, but I've worked on projects,and have led projects, that had hundreds of peopleworking on thousands of tasks.The Project Management Institute breaks any projectdown into five broad processes.The first is initiating, actually making a decisionthat the project is going to go forward,deciding to build the hotel,making the determination that your business is best servedby re-doing the company's intranet, or decidingthat, rather than tear my cabin down,I need to re-roof it.

The second step, then, is planning,including gathering informationfrom subject matter experts, and stakeholders.We then need to lay out the steps in our project.This is also part of the plan.And with our plan in place,and having been approved by the appropriate people,we begin executing including launching our project.Now that we've begun the project, and we have work going on,tasks being completed, there's a vital roleof monitoring and controlling to make surethat the project is going to complete its deliverableson time and that it stays within budget.

Finally when all of this has ended,we have the completion of the overall project.In each and every one of these processes,we have common tasks.Things that you're doing as part of managementfor a project.For example, you have information gathering,and that information needs to be gatheredand then stored somewhere.You'll develop a project planand that plan will include multiple documents.

You're going to list, organize, and assign tasksto individuals and then follow up on those tasksas part of your management.And, optionally, you may need to identifyappropriate suppliers, or contractors, for your project teamand assign tasks to them, as well.And you're going to need to manage the completionof deliverables and manage the timeline.Finally, along the way, you'll need to identifyand manage issues, and also risks.How can Box help us with these tasksthat are part of the processes involvedin managing a project?Well first, Box gives us a safeand secure central locationwhere we can manage our documents.

Every member of our project team can access documentsbecause we've stored them all in one place.We don't ask people to go search through their inboxesor sent items folders to find our documentsand we're not hoping that someone broughtthe right USB drive to a client update meeting.We will have one source of truth for our project.Our team's documents in a specific Box folder.Team members can view the documentsthat are stored in Box often without even needingto load the native applications.

When you don't have a space like thiswhere you share your common files,you will often do your teamwork, serially, via email.I finish my part of the work and I email to somebody else,or reply all and send it to many people.Box gives your project team a place to work togetheroutside of email, to share files and folders,and to truly be able to collaborate.With Box Notes, multiple members of your team can be workingin the same document at the same timewhether you're documenting issues,or you're actually working on a deliverable.

And you can assign tasks to members of the teamand keep track of task completion in Box.All of this shared project information is availablein a browser, is available using the Box mobile appsfor iPad and iPhone and Android,and can be synced to your desktop.Box provides a great toolkit for project teamsthat work on multiple projects or in multiple locations,and for project teams that need fast, mobile accessto the current versions of project documents.

With Box, you can make it easy for your team membersto communicate and work collaborativelyacross multiple projects whether they're in the office,or they're on the road.So if you're seeking a better set of toolsfor your team's small, shorter-duration projects,Box may be exactly what you've been looking for.

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Author

Released

11/9/2015

Looking for a cloud-based solution to manage small-scale projects? Box may be the answer. In this course, author Gini Courter shows you how to use Box's content management features to manage projects. You'll learn how to prepare Box for the project team, define folders and folder permission levels, work with documents and tasks, and collaborate and communicate with others using features such as notes, comments, and versioning. In a closing chapter, Gini runs Box through a use case scenario—managing RFPs and bidding—so you can see how Box handles a real-world project management scenario.

Lynda.com is a PMI Registered Education Provider. This course qualifies for professional development units (PDUs). To view the activity and PDU details for this course, click here.The PMI Registered Education Provider logo is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.